Letter: Liberal candidate’s train route plan is unsustainable

Tuesday

Jul 3, 2018 at 1:53 PM

My, my, what a surprise, another democrat who wants to spend state tax money on another boondoggle. Angie Bodine is running for the State House, and apparently, a major plank in her platform is to get the state to fork over millions of dollars for a train route that runs from Chicago to East Dubuque.

Her rationale: “This is a project that would bring solutions for real economic growth to our community.” As is usual with our liberal friends, a lot of “feel good” words, without an ounce of substance to them. Not a clue as to how this would bring economic growth to our region. Here’s a thought; if this project would indeed generate economic activity, how is it that the “for-profit” railroads are not pursuing this plan? If it will indeed generate this sort of activity, it would also generate freight and passenger volume sufficient to making the route profitable and, therefore, viable.

I know, liberal democrats abhor the idea of profit. That is just for greedy entrepreneurs and big companies. However, if the proposed route will not sustain itself, which is a pretty sure bet, not only do we Illinois citizens get to cover the multi-million ($233 million in 2014) dollar initial cost, we also get to pump untold millions of dollars into it over the next 30 to 40 years, covering its losses. Not a good idea.

— Dave Willis, Rockford

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